


Fly on the Wall

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Artemis Being a Little Shit, Artemis in an Undercut, Artemis is Gay, Everyone Is Gay, Gen, M/M, Myles is probably also Gay, Voyeurism, smells slightly of incest, whiff of underage if that's how you wanna read it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myles Fowl's education consists mostly of watching and learning and saying little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly on the Wall

My brother, tall and slim, radiating quiet power and competency, is currently insulting an entire room of businessmen three times his age by checking his stocks and the current news headlines on his phone instead of speaking to any of them.

This entire event has been a studied insult. Usually known for his bespoke suits in dark wool blends, he'd arrived in a crisp white button-down shirt and sensible slacks-- practically naked by his standards. He'd been growing his hair long, but cut it recently, in an asymmetrical style. Undercut, he'd said. It's trendy.

He may as well have come to this meeting wearing a sign that read "BUGGER OFF YOU WRINKLY SONS OF BITCHES." 

He's wearing an _earring._

"Myles," he'd said so me as we'd walked up the steps to the cold glass building, "I want you to watch how this is done."

Beckett gets to stay home with Juliet, but I, as always, am tagging along in my brother's shadow, because I'm here to watch. Watch, and learn. I'm better at it than they think I am. And I've been doing it for longer than they've been asking me to.

I'm a Fowl, after all. I'm smarter than most. And I learned very early on that a chatty and curious child would be praised and coddled, but a silent and watchful one could slip into places his boisterous brother would immediately be shooed out of. Offices where I could watch what words were flashing across a laptop screen by standing on my tiptoes. Narrow hallways where two or three men would stand close together for clandestine meetings. 

Bedrooms, where I learned that my stiff and proper older brother could relax his guard, when he wanted to. I hadn't _wanted_ to spy on him and that young man from the accounting firm. But the door had been shut and then locked, and there was a huge expanse of expensive rug between me and freedom. I'd stood very still in the shadow between the desk and the wall and made my breathing quiet. 

Learning something for the sake of learning it isn't bad, my father had told me once. Knowledge by itself isn't an evil thing. It's how you use it that matters. So I saw no harm in learning where my brother liked to be kissed (the inside of his wrist, the hollow of his throat, and low, low on his abdomen, a place that made his pink mouth open and his pale skin shiver) and how he liked to be touched (softly, gently, with many sighs and whispered words too quiet even for me to hear). I learned that though I'd thought my brother was steady and measured in all parts of his life, there were times when his breath went ragged and his voice shook. 

My brother stands strong against older, more experienced adversaries in the business world. Perhaps he doesn't fight in the same way that our father does, but he does fight. These says, when I see the subtle tension in his jaw as he quietly cuts some pompous board member to pieces, all I can think of is the softness of his mouth and the trembling of his body and how warm that single, broken moan might feel against my own skin.

I'm standing behind my brother, watching him flick through photos of endangered animals, when the both of us clearly hear someone comment that the heir to such a huge fortune ought to be taught how to dress more professionally. I glance at Artemis, but he doesn't even look up; instead, his nimble fingers bring up the name of a company, double-tap it, and send an email to one of his associates. That company will have been bought out, and its assets liquidated, by the end of the week. Perhaps sooner; it's only Tuesday.

My brother's lips curve into a little smile. I smile with him, and the pair of us smirking down at his phone screen must be the most terrifying sight any of these men have encountered. Someday, I will be like him: strong in the way a willow tree is strong, moving with the wind but never toppling over, graceful and dependable and beautiful.

But for today, I watch.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started with, "What if Artemis got an undercut?" and ended up as "What if Myles spied on Artemis and his boyfriend and it made him sort of have a crush on his brother?" Originally posted to Tumblr, in the Artemis Fowl tag that I sometimes terrorize.


End file.
